Here's Why Disney And Marvel Studios Delayed AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY And AVENGERS: SECRET WARS

Following the news that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars have each been hit by eight-month delays, we have insights into what led Disney and Marvel Studios down that road. Read on for details.

News

By JoshWilding - May 23, 2025 01:05 PM EST

Filed Under: Avengers: Doomsday

Source: Deadline

Yesterday evening, we learned that Avengers: Doomsday has been moved from May 1, 2026, to December 18, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars, meanwhile, will now open on December 17, 2027, after it was originally scheduled for May 7, 2027.

Most fans seem to agree that this is for the best, as such a quick turnaround on both blockbusters likely wouldn't do either of them any favours.

Deadline has shared some insights into why Disney and Marvel Studios concluded that delaying Doomsday and Secret Wars was the right move, with insiders telling the trade that "these two films are among the biggest ever made, and the delays simply allow more time to execute on a gargantuan vision."

As for why the Avengers franchise is moving from its usual May slot to December, it's said that's down to "the success they've had in the holiday corridor with titles like Spider-Man: No Way Home."

There's certainly something to be said for making Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars holiday event movies, particularly as the Star Wars and Avatar franchises grossed billions worldwide over the holidays. Even DC's Aquaman was a $1 billion hit when it splashed down into theaters in 2018.

After the highs of Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel Studios' Phases 5 and 6 have delivered uneven projects like Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Captain America: Brave New World. It's apparent the studio’s been struggling to recapture that Infinity War-era magic, and quality takes time.

An argument could be made that pushing these movies back signals confidence, not panic. If anything, it's Kevin Feige saying, "We're not cutting corners," and if the Russos and Robert Downey Jr. can stick the landing, this could be the franchise's biggest comeback since Iron Man kicked the MCU off in 2008. We'll see.

Avengers: Doomsday stars Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Winston Duke, Tom Hiddleston, Sebastian Stan, Letitia Wright, Paul Rudd, and Robert Downey Jr. Wyatt Russell, Simu Liu, Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Florence Pugh, Danny Ramirez, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Lewis Pullman all make the Avengers franchise debuts in the movie.

So do The Fantastic Four: First Steps leads Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn, with X-Men franchise stars Kelsey Grammer, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, and Channing Tatum set to join them.

Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released on ~~May 1 2026~~, with Avengers: Secret Wars scheduled to arrive on ~~May 7, 2027~~.

AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Rumor Points To A VERY Surprising Character Return - Possible SPOILERS

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65 Comments

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UnderBelly - 5/23/2025, 1:27 PM

They looking for that holiday/Avatar money. Smart move also. They been underperformed with their usual release dates the last few movies.

epc1122 - 5/23/2025, 1:31 PM

@UnderBelly - I was thinking the same thing. I kind of wish that Superman had moved to this past December because i think there would have been less competition and had that holiday money.

UnderBelly - 5/23/2025, 1:34 PM

@epc1122 - worked for Aquaman.

HeavyMetal4Life - 5/23/2025, 1:44 PM

@UnderBelly - yup, agreed

lord22 - 5/23/2025, 1:50 PM

@epc1122 - by less competition you mean avatar 3 ?

epc1122 - 5/23/2025, 2:01 PM

@lord22 - I’m pretty sure avatar 3 is supposed to come out dec 2025 and avengers doomsday is supposed to come out Dec 2026. Im not sure when avatar 4 is supposed to come out. As for Superman, I think this past holiday season it would have onion has to contend with wicked.

UnderBelly - 5/23/2025, 2:02 PM

@epc1122 - @lord22 was talking about Superman

epc1122 - 5/23/2025, 2:11 PM

@UnderBelly - I wanted Superman to be out December of 2024 not this upcoming holiday season. I think Superman finished production awhile ago and Gunn was editing as he was filming so I didn’t think post production should have been this long.

UnderBelly - 5/23/2025, 2:18 PM

@epc1122 - I would disagree. They need time to also promote and great hype to make the most effective impact on the box office. That time is also to fine tune the movie as a whole. As a business move its bigger than just that one movie.

UnderBelly - 5/23/2025, 2:19 PM

@UnderBelly - create hype* especially for the general audience. Not just the fan boys.

epc1122 - 5/23/2025, 2:27 PM

@UnderBelly - I could be wrong with the timeline but I think production was done that July and if he was editing during the filming, four months seems like enough time. I think everything has been done for awhile but only now it’s being released bc it’s closer to the release date. But I can see your point 👍

spr0cks - 5/23/2025, 3:28 PM

@epc1122 - It wasn't ready to be released this past December.
How do we know that?

They're still working on post and CGI right now.

epc1122 - 5/23/2025, 3:49 PM

@spr0cks - I'm absolutely just speculating but Gunn did say that he edits as he films and I think production ended a long time ago. Of course, if the movie wasn't done in time for a December release then having it come out later would be the right decision. But there's going to be a lot of competition this July and Superman needs to have a huge profit for this new universe to survive. My hope is that the movie is well liked with fans and the general audience and does well at the box office because I selfishly want a sequel. My fear is that this will be the last superman movie in my lifetime.

CreateNowSlpL8r - 5/23/2025, 1:27 PM

"these two films are among the biggest ever made, and the delays simply allow more time to execute on a gargantuan vision."

Translation: 2 out of our 3 releases this year financially failed and we have no faith in FF. If that fails, we are going to have to re-write parts of these movies. If FF fails, that makes 5 out of the last 7 releases that financially failed with Guardians and Deadpool being the exception. If you track back to Endgame and remove the Spider-man movies (Sony), only BP made money.

Marvel Studios is hemoraging money and they paid RDJ 100m for both films with a new CEO incoming.

vectorsigma - 5/23/2025, 1:34 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r - that's a great translation!

Nolanite - 5/23/2025, 2:07 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r -

That's about as correct as correct can be!

Nolanite out

CreateNowSlpL8r - 5/23/2025, 2:10 PM

@vectorsigma - The other thing is if you stretch the release date from FF in July, you re-write parts of Avengers and kind of rest the IP so people forget about it. Release a trailer not focusing on all these failed characters and hope people forgot about them. They can't move it out of 2026 because of the financials. You only have one Marvel movie (Spidey is a Sony movie) and one Star Wars movie even on the calendar and guess who the Mando movie stars?

Rough times over there at Marvel and Lucasfilm.

Typhoon20 - 5/23/2025, 2:33 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r - That's just plain wrong. Dr Strange MOM made a shitload of money.

MyCoolYoung - 5/23/2025, 2:43 PM

@Typhoon20 - Love and Thunder made money, Ant-Man 3 turned a profit, hell Captain America 4 can still turn a profit, and so can Thunderbolts, with digital sales but we just gotta let these people talk.

CreateNowSlpL8r - 5/23/2025, 2:55 PM

@Typhoon20 - No, it didn't. The financials revealed it was one of the most expensive Marvel movies to make at 414.9 million. People still dont understand that studios only get 50% of the domestic box office and far less overseas. Out of the 955m worldwide, 544m was overseas. Disney generally is able to hide a lot of the itemized costs but they shot it in the UK so had to disclose in 2024.

It might not have been a total wash though, I was unaware of the funny money from the UK reimbursment so I'll give you that but it wasn't done at the box office.

Either way, shitload of money is not accurate compared to the spend.

IAmAHoot - 5/23/2025, 1:36 PM

The delays will give them time to cast everyone they want, plain and simple; a lot of busy schedules to juggle.
Never mind that, it will also grant them more time to work on the post-production.

vectorsigma - 5/23/2025, 1:39 PM

Such lame excuses.

My guess is that they already know they need more time but stuck with the May 2026 date and released the cast announcement to hype up the Thunderbolts movie. Nothing happened and it flopped. They have no faith in F4 so instead of waiting for that to get released, they announced the delay now.

Desperate on every angle you look at.

Now they will rely on Gunn to jumpstart the genre before going back. So all marvel fanboys (sheep or not) should support the DCU to keep their fandom alive, lolz

JacobsLadder - 5/23/2025, 2:50 PM

@vectorsigma - you nailed it. The BO tracking for F4 must be abysmal.

vectorsigma - 5/23/2025, 9:06 PM

@JacobsLadder - yeah, the announcement of the delay somewhat gave a clue on how f4 is faring. It is also competing with Superman and Jurassic

TheRationalNerd - 5/23/2025, 1:39 PM

Honestly, if they're taking the time to make it an exhilarating send off and restart of a new era we can't be mad at that at all. Still bringing in a huge holiday gathering at the theaters and it'll be for a film that's actually great! ✌🏽😄

It appears that "Shrek 5", "Dune Messiah" and I believe "Ice Age 6"? are releasing that month as well.

Yellow - 5/23/2025, 2:02 PM

@TheRationalNerd - it's holiday season, most studios place their heavy hitters on that date

CreateNowSlpL8r - 5/23/2025, 2:12 PM

@Yellow - except every Avengers movie has released in April/May. I think this is a buffer to make changes if FF fails.

TheRationalNerd - 5/23/2025, 2:47 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r - Yessir. Totally agreed.

ObserverIO - 5/23/2025, 3:20 PM

@TheRationalNerd - Dune Messiah is the big competition, but I really don't think it's hitting with the GA in the way they wanted, despite having two of the hottest young stars in the lead. I think there could be a dropoff for the third movie.

MCU also having some problems with the GA I guess, but all the multiverse movies seem to still be hitting big let alone the fact that this is the team that brought us Endgame. Fiege, Russos, RDJ, Spidey and Wolverine will bring in the masses to sit on their asses.

mountainman - 5/23/2025, 5:28 PM

@ObserverIO - If Dune Messiah incorporates what Paul and the Fremen do between the first and second books, which I think it will since that book is short and devoid of action, it’ll be a massive hit. Huge big budget space conquest movie coupled with some conspiracies and philosophizing.

If it only adapts what’s in the book, people like me will still love it, but I fear it’ll be a lot less popular with the GA.

thedrudo - 5/23/2025, 1:47 PM

I love a good December release.

TheJester187 - 5/23/2025, 1:47 PM

They can push it back to 2039 idc! Batman part 2 coming soon!

lord22 - 5/23/2025, 1:52 PM

@TheJester187 - no matter what avengers doomsday will come first maybe even secret wars

ModHaterSLADE - 5/23/2025, 1:47 PM

Getting that sweet Santa money.

spr0cks - 5/23/2025, 1:52 PM

Doesn't that pit them (either or both) against the Avatar sequels?

Or does that one come out this year? (which would therefore mean that Avatar 4 comes out in December 2027 and against Avengers : Secret Wars, no?)

sully - 5/23/2025, 2:04 PM

They'll be delayed again for another 5 months. There's no way they're going to release these films in December. May is the primetime month for movie releases. Expect Doomsday to be pushed back to the May 2027 and May 2028 slots. If anything they will release Doomsday in May and then Secret Wars six months later in November of 2027 if they want to keep a fall slot.

Yellow - 5/23/2025, 2:06 PM

Well people is going to complain anyway.
Scenario 1:
They keep may release. People shouting "they are desperate to make the movie fast and the cgi will be terrible, the script will be terrible"

Scenario 2:
They delay the release. People shouting "they are desperate to cash on holiday season and they don't know what to do with the movie".

So...yeah.
Back then people didnt have such entitled "expert" opinions, those were the days.

KennKathleen - 5/23/2025, 2:41 PM

@Yellow -Back then we were too busy being distracted by a solid story with anazing visuals.

Yellow - 5/23/2025, 5:23 PM

@KennKathleen - yeah well...Thor 2, Ironman 3, Ant-man 2, Captain Marvel, those weren't exactly Kubrick stuff

KennKathleen - 5/23/2025, 5:32 PM

@Yellow - In comparison to the present... it's damn near "Kubrickian".

... I'd also place Captain Marvel in Phase 4. She's the real Genesis to this 💩 slip n' slide!!!

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Here's Why Disney And Marvel Studios Delayed AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY And AVENGERS: SECRET WARS

Following the news that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars have each been hit by eight-month delays, we have insights into what led Disney and Marvel Studios down that road. Read on for details.

AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Rumor Points To A VERY Surprising Character Return - Possible SPOILERS

RUMOR: The Russo Brothers Are Casting The MCU's New GHOST RIDER For AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY

DISCLAIMER: As a user generated site and platform, ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions.